Characters Review for Night Test
Elie Wiesel: narrator, 15 years old when taken to Auschwitz Mr. Chlomo Wiesel: Elie’s father; stays with him after selection Hilda: Elie’s oldest sister Bea: Elie’s middle sister Tzipora: Elie’s youngest sister-­‐ He’s separated from mother and sisters at the start of chapter 3. Moshe the Beadle: Elie’s spiritual mentor who warns Sighet about what happened to him Madame Schacter: women on cattle car who screams about fire-­‐prophet. Bela Katz: known for his strength; forced to put corpses into crematory, including his own father Stein of Antwerp: distant relative Chlomo does not remember; Elie lies about Stein’s family and Stein gives him extra rations of bread Akiba Drumer: influential and spiritual; tells prisoners not to give up on faith /life. Later is a victim of selection. Weak no longer go on; loses all faith;terror. He effects Elie-­‐ if he’s giving up, they’re losing all hope. *Juliek, Louis and Hans: musicians instructed to play during “military march” Franek: (kapo) demands that Elie gives up his gold crown Idek: Kapo in charge of building where Elie is assigned; he is known to have fits of rage and takes it out on prisoners. French girl: Jewish women who passes for “Aryan”-­‐ helps Elie in building. Tibi and Yossi: two brothers Elie befriends. Rabbi Eliahu: He is running with his son. His son notices he is struggling and left his father. (Every man for himself) Zalmen: Ran next to Elie and drops because of stomach cramps. This was very disturbing to Elie, but he had to keep on running for himself. Juliek: Once the march is over there are men get trampled and he is near death. All Juliek cares about is playing his violen, starts playing Beethoven concerto(not allowed to ply this because Beethoven= German). His soul became his bow-­‐playing his life gliding over the strings. This gave him a sense of comfort and was the last happy memory before death. Dynamic Character in Night
Elie Evidence of Change
(what happens)
Cause of Change
(how it happened)
Personality Changes 1. 2nd time Chlomo is beaten, Feels angry towards his father Become dehumanized and Elie doesn’t react desensitized 2. Becomes more concerned Felt a little relieved once father about himself passed away 3. Becomes callus-­‐less Doesn’t cry/ show emotion emotional Father died Desensitized and disconnected from other people Religious Changes 1.Does not fast on Yom Kipper He only cares about himself Already starved 2.Stops prayer When other people reciting God was not answering their prayers, he is silent prayers 3. Questions God’s existence The young pipel being hung Feels god has been absent Social Changes 1. Becomes antisocial-­‐ keeps He only cares about himself Everyone was just as dehumanized to himself and desensitized as him 2. Not trusting of people Doesn’t talk to anyone-­‐keeps to People not looking out for one himself another and prisoners lie to one other 3. Doesn’t assist other people Lets other people fall during If he helps other people he’ll die too death march. Analyzing book: Point of view: Elie Weisel
Protagonist: Elie Weisel Major conflict: war and concentration camps Complications: starvation, selection, father disease, facing death Climax: When Elie’s father dies Resolution: Elie was liberated Themes: Questioning Gods Existence, Holding onto one’s faith, resistance and survival, familiar identity. Different & Important: First hand account of what he went through. Descriptive language and imagery of event. Title Night: Darkness, cruel nature if camp. Most of the cruel things happened at night. Themes: 1.
2.
Questioning God’s existence and holding on to faith-­‐ Even though Wiesel’s belief in God is almost shattered, and he chooses to rebel about God, he still has faith. The fact that Elie questions his faith, weather doubting God or not, still shows some dedication to his religion. Resistance and Survival: Despite the acts of silence and cruelty among the Nazis and the prisoners, the sheer acts of compassion and strength that did exist helped to endure the Holocaust and helped people survive. 3.
Familial Identity: Importance of the bond between father and son. The relationship between Elie and his father is a constant element of survival. Elie sees several examples of selfishness and vows not to be like the sons who betray their father. 4.
Breaking the Silence: The ability to recount the horrific experiences of enslavement and torture, and share the feelings and emotions with the rest of the world, in order to educate and arouse sympathy. 
Why do you think Elie almost loses his faith in God? Do you think Elie holds God responsible for what is happening to him and the Jews? Elie almost loses faith in God because he felt God wasn’t answering his prayers and wasn’t doing anything to help the Jews or stop what the Nazis and Hitler were doing. Elie does not hold God responsible for what was happening, he just wishes God did something to help. Look at Elie Wiesel’s last words at the end of chapter 9. What does he mean when he says “from the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me” (pg. 109) When Elie sees himself in the mirror on the outside he looked like a corpse because he was malnourished and physically beat. On the inside Elie is dead too. He is not the same person that he was before he entered the concentration camps. That old person he was , was killed from being dehumanized and desensitized in the camps. 
Character List Eliezer - The narrator of Night and the stand-­‐in for the memoir’s author, Elie Wiesel. Night traces Eliezer’s psychological journey, as the Holocaust robs him of his faith in God and exposes him to the deepest inhumanity of which man is capable. Despite many tests of his humanity, however, Eliezer maintains his devotion to his father. It is important to note that we learn Eliezer’s last name only in passing, and that it is never repeated. His story—which parallels Wiesel’s own biography—is intensely personal, but it is also representative of the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Jewish teenagers. Chlomo - Even though he is the only character other than Eliezer who is present throughout the memoir, Eliezer’s father is named only once, at the end of Night. Chlomo is respected by the entire Jewish community of Sighet, and by his son as well. He and Eliezer desperately try to remain together throughout their concentration camp ordeal. Moshe the Beadle - Eliezer’s teacher of Jewish mysticism, Moshe is a poor Jew who lives in Sighet. He is deported before the rest of the Sighet Jews but escapes and returns to tell the town what the Nazis are doing to the Jews. Tragically, the community takes Moshe for a lunatic. Akiba Drumer - A Jewish Holocaust victim who gradually loses his faith in God as a result of his experiences in the concentration camp. Madame Schächter - A Jewish woman from Sighet who is deported in the same cattle car as Eliezer. Madame Schächter is taken for a madwoman when, every night, she screams that she sees furnaces in the distance. She proves to be a prophetess, however, as the trains soon arrive at the crematoria of Auschwitz. Juliek - A young musician whom Eliezer meets in Auschwitz. Juliek reappears late in the memoir, when Eliezer hears him playing the violin after the death march to Gleiwitz. Tibi and Yosi -­‐ Two brothers with whom Eliezer becomes friendly in Buna. Tibi and Yosi are Zionists. Along with Eliezer, they make a plan to move to Palestine after the war. Dr. Josef Mengele - When he arrives at Auschwitz, Eliezer encounters the historically infamous Dr. Mengele. Mengele was the cruel doctor who presided over the selection of arrivals at Auschwitz/Birkenau. Known as the “Angel of Death,” Mengele’s words sentenced countless prisoners to death in the gas chambers. He also directed horrific experiments on human subjects at the camp. Idek - Eliezer’s Kapo (a prisoner conscripted by the Nazis to police other prisoners) at the electrical equipment warehouse in Buna. Despite the fact that they also faced the cruelty of the Nazis, many Kapos were as cruel to the prisoners as the Germans. During moments of insane rage, Idek beats Eliezer. Franek -­‐ Eliezer’s foreman at Buna. Franek notices Eliezer’s gold tooth and gets a dentist in the camp to pry it out with a rusty spoon. Rabbi Eliahou - A devout Jewish prisoner whose son abandons him in one of many instances in Night of a son behaving cruelly toward his father. Eliezer prays that he will never behave as Rabbi Eliahou’s son behaves. Zalman - One of Eliezer’s fellow prisoners. Zalman is trampled to death during the run to Gleiwitz. Meir Katz - Eliezer’s father’s friend from Buna. In the cattle car to Buchenwald, Katz saves Eliezer’s life from an unidentified assailant. Stein -­‐ Eliezer’s relative from Antwerp, Belgium, whom he and his father encounter in Auschwitz. Trying to bolster his spirit, Eliezer lies to Stein and tells him that his family is still alive and healthy. Hilda - Eliezer’s oldest sister. Béa - Eliezer’s middle sister.
Tzipora - Eliezer’s youngest sister. Eliezer Eliezer is more than just a traditional protagonist; his direct experience is the entire substance of Night. He tells his story in a highly subjective, first-­‐person, autobiographical voice, and, as a result, we get an intimate, personal account of the Holocaust through direct descriptive language. Whereas many books about the Holocaust use a generalized historical or epic perspective to paint a broad picture of the period, Eliezer’s account is limited in scope but gives a personal perspective through which the reader receives a harrowingly intimate description of life under the Nazis. First and foremost, it is important to differentiate between the author of Night, Elie Wiesel, and its narrator and protagonist, Eliezer. That a distinction can be made does not mean that Night is a work of fiction. Indeed, except for minor details, what happens to Eliezer is exactly what happened to Wiesel during the Holocaust. But Wiesel alters minor details (for example, Wiesel wounded his knee in the concentration camps, while Eliezer wounds his foot) in order to place some distance, however small, between himself and his protagonist. It is extremely painful for a survivor to remember and write about his or her Holocaust experience; creating a narrator allows Wiesel to distance himself somewhat from the trauma and suffering about which he writes. Wiesel did not write Night merely to document historical truths about physical events. The memoir is concerned with the emotional truth about the Holocaust, as experienced by individuals. As Eliezer struggles for survival, his most fundamental beliefs—his faith in God, faith in his fellow human beings, and sense of justice in the world—are called into question. He emerges from his experience profoundly changed. The Holocaust shakes his faith in God and the world around him, and he sees the depths of cruelty and selfishness to which any human being—including himself—can sink. Through Eliezer, Wiesel intimately conveys his horrible experiences and his transformation as a prisoner during the Holocaust.